Reggie McDonald

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Reggie McDonald was a clown who was a mascot of the McDonald's fast-food restaurant chain for a brief period in 1975. McDonald's intended the character as a tool to help it expand its customer base into the African-American community, where it had enjoyed little success. After highly critical reviews of the associated marketing campaign and complaints of racism from prominent civil rights leaders, McDonald's quickly retired the character.

[edit] Origin

For two decades after the franchise's 1955 founding, McDonald's almost exclusively operated restaurants in white communities. Having reached market saturation in these communities, McDonald's sought to develop a customer base in African-American communities. The company figured that a jive-talking, afro-wearing black clown would appeal to African-American children in the 1970s, just as the white-skinned and red-haired Ronald McDonald appealled to white children. McDonald's launched the character in a 1975 television commercial starring Richard Roundtree. By all accounts, the commercial only aired a handful of times, and no copy is known to exist outside of the control of McDonald's.

[edit] Controversy

Reggie McDonald was controversial from the start. Both black and white critics savaged McDonald's for the character's jive speaking style. Black critics claimed that the character perpetuated stereotypes of blacks as uneducated, while white critics alleged that the character's speaking style sent the wrong message to children about the use of slang, particularly Reggie's catchphase, "gimmie some o' dose mothafuckin' fries!"

More serious criticism of the character centered around perceived "ghettoization" of Reggie and his friends. Although Reggie and Ronald were said to be "soul brothers," the two characters never appeared together. In fact, Reggie and Ronald did not even live in the same fictional town. Ronald a fantasy world called McDonaldland, while Reggie lived in Nubbinsville. Ronald attended Hamburger U, while Reggie went to Nubbinsville Prep, and then attended Felt State University on a basketball scholarship. Ronald had adventures with his friends Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie the Early Bird, and The Fry Kids. Reggie's friends included The Gray Haired Monster, The Man in the Box (alleged to be a rip off of Oscar the Grouch), The Latin Donkey, and Bar-B-Q Bret. Reggie also had a romantic interest, a white woman named Mrs. Bishop, and a stepson named Lurchy. The Lurchy character was criticized for being little more than a promotional tie-in for the Coca-Cola corporation, as he was preoccupied with giving a Coke can to other characters. This implied endorsement of segregation caused McDonald's to terminate the character just a few weeks after it was launched.